Reply #57: Strong Must Rule the Weak, said Neo-Cons' Muse (Strauss) - Truthout | 5/8/

[Stephanie]

http://www.truthout.org/docs_03/050903I.shtml

Strong Must Rule the Weak, said Neo-Cons' Muse
by Jim Lobe
Inter Press

Thursday 08 May 2003

WASHINGTON - Is U.S. foreign policy being run by followers of an obscure German Jewish political philosopher whose views were elitist, amoral and hostile to democratic government?

Suddenly, political Washington is abuzz about Leo Strauss, who arrived in the United States in 1938 and taught at several major universities before his death in 1973.

Thanks to the ”Week in Review'' section of last Sunday's 'New York Times' and another investigative article in this week's 'New Yorker' magazine, the cognoscenti have suddenly been made aware that key neo-conservative strategists behind the Bush administration's aggressive foreign and military policy consider themselves to be followers of Strauss, although the philosopher - an expert on Plato and Aristotle - rarely addressed current events in his writings.

The most prominent is Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz, now widely known as ''Wolfowitz of Arabia'' for his obsession with ousting Iraq's Saddam Hussein as the first step in transforming the entire Arab Middle East. Wolfowitz is also seen as the chief architect of Washington's post-9/11 global strategy, including its controversial pre-emption policy.

Two other very influential Straussians include 'Weekly Standard' Chief Editor William Kristol and Gary Schmitt, founder, chairman and director of the Project for the New American Century (PNAC), a six-year-old neo-conservative group whose alumni include Vice President Dick Cheney and Pentagon chief Donald Rumsfeld, as well as a number of other senior foreign policy officials.<more at link>